The Talos Principle: Reawakened was more than an Unreal Engine 5 remaster of Croteam’s first-person philosophical puzzle-solving classic. It also included a whole new expansion for players, In the Beginning.

The new expansion includes 18 puzzles, 16 of which were made in collaboration with a few of The Talos Principle’s most dedicated fans who’d been designing puzzles for years already. This is a key fact about this new expansion’s development because these are some of the most challenging puzzles across the entire Talos Principle series. Who else besides the community’s sickos (positive) could have designed them?

This guide will walk you through solving the puzzle Eclipse, which is located in the Egypt section of the In the Beginning expansion in The Talos Principle: Reawakened.

The Talos Principle: Reawakened – In the Beginning – Eclipse Puzzle Guide

Part of what makes this puzzle challenging is that many of the components are only necessary for you to concern yourself with if you’re trying to get the Gold Star.

If you want a big hint without looking at the rest of this guide for the solution, know that about half the puzzle area can be ignored if you want to grab the tetromino and be on your way. Another far more cryptic hint is that pause points and having items flying in the air while paused are part of how you solve this puzzle.

But if you’re already here, I imagine you’ve spent long enough trying to solve this on your own and now want the solution. Keep reading to see how this puzzle can be solved.

Phase One

To start solving this puzzle, you first need to get the key to the locked door on the left side of the puzzle area.

• Head towards the currently disabled barrier to the right. Grab the connector on the elevated step, connect it to the blue beam and the blue node immediately adjacent to each other, and place the connector to the left of the slightly elevated step. You should also angle it to stay connected to the node it was first connected to when you walked into the puzzle room. This will turn off the barrier, but a fan still blocks you from walking beyond the barrier.

• Turn around, and you will see a hexahedron (box) on a weighted switch to your right. Grab the box, and while standing slightly on the other side of the barrier that you’ve turned off, place the box on the elevated step to turn off the fan.

• Grab the fan off the vent and use it on the weighted switch to turn off the barrier in front of you. Grab the box off the elevated step to allow the blue beam to re-connect, turning off the barrier on the left so both are off, and you can retrieve the fan. Grab it and place it down next to the box and connector.

• Bring the box and the fan to the starting area, placing the fan on the vent on the ground to the right of the weighted switch in front of the puzzle entrance. Place the box on the weighted switch, activating the vent. Jump onto the vent to lift yourself in the air, and you’ll see the keys on the platform in front of you. Jump on the platform to grab the keys.

Phase Two

Now you have the keys to unlock the door and access the recorder. But you still need the connector, which is currently trapped on the wrong side of the barrier it is keeping disabled. This is where you’ll start utilizing the recorder. Getting the connector on the right side of the barrier is the easy part. After that, it all gets much more complex. Let’s start with getting the connector on the right side of the barrier.

• After unlocking the door with the keys, activate the recorder and create a pause point anywhere you like. Hit play on the recording.

• Thanks to the duplicated version of the connector in the recording, you can now grab the connector without disconnecting the beams when the recording pauses. Place the connector next to the vents and weighted switch in the puzzle entrance before letting the rest of the recording play.

Connector acquired. Here’s where it gets trickier.

• Grab the connector and connect it to the red beam and the red node shown in the screenshot above. Place the connector down next to the vent.

• Start a new recording and grab the fan to use as a weight on the weighted switch on the left side of the puzzle area.

• Grab the connector and connect it to the red node, which you should be able to see through a window in the wall. Leave the connector there.

• Grab the fan off the weighted switch and place it back on the vent on the floor. After you’ve completed those actions, create a pause point.

• Grab the box, step on the weighted switch that activates the fans, and create another pause point.

• Drop the box on the fan directly in front of the weighted switch, and once it has reached its peak height, make another pause point. You can now walk over to the recorder and stop the recording.

• As your recording begins to play, pick up the fan again, place it on the same weighted switch you placed it on in the recording, and leave it there. Once your recorded self has placed the fan back on the vent and hit the first pause point, put the box on top of the fan while keeping it paused. Grab the connector, connect it to the duplicated recording version of the connector, and place the connector on the box.

• With the recording still paused, head over to the left side of the puzzle room and beyond the purple barrier. Play the recording, and the blue barrier in front of you should be lifted once the box and the connector are in the air. The recording will pause again; don’t unpause it until you’ve walked beyond the blue barrier.

• At this point, you’re nearly there. The barrier shield blocking your way to the tetromino should be lifted with the box and the connector in the air, but a fan blowing impedes you from walking to it.

• Un-pause the recording again, and once everything is in the air, the duplicated recorded box should line up perfectly to block the red beam keeping the fan on, allowing you to grab the tetromino and complete the puzzle. It won’t block the beam continuously, though, as the box with the connector on it bounces in the air. It’s best to watch the box rise, and once you see it block the beam, make a break for the tetromino.

You’ll want to give the red beams enough time to properly activate each node, as long-time Talos Principle players know that nodes don’t always activate immediately.

Check out our review for more on The Talos Principle: Reawakened.